John Patrick Prendergast

From The Cabinet of Irish Literature, Volume 4, edited by T. P. O'Connor

Mr. Prendergast was born in Dublin in 1807, and was educated at Reading, England, under the Rev. Dr. Valpy. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the bar in 1830. In conjunction with the Very Rev. Dr. Russell, the president of Maynooth College, he was appointed by Lord Romilly to select state papers relating to Ireland from the Carte Collection of Papers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Mr. Prendergast was afterwards engaged in cataloguing the state papers (Ireland) of James I. He is the author of The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, a second edition of which appeared in 1870. This is a very remarkable product of industry, informed by zeal. It is the first work that has thrown full light on a dark period in Irish history. In its pages we have an account of that terrible tragedy in Irish history—the displacement of the old Irish and Anglo-Irish families by the retainers of Cromwell; and the story is told with great dramatic skill. Every student of Irish history—and especially of the history of the Irish land—should make himself familiar with this excellent book. Mr. Prendergast is at present engaged on a new work on "The Scandinavians." He is an honorary member of the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain.

Featured Books

Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger (also onKindle) is an American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine. Sailing from New York, she set out to determine the condition of the Irish poor and discover why so many were emigrating to her home country. Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today. The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowingAnnals of the Famine in Ireland (Kindle version here).

Annals of the Famine in Ireland is Asenath Nicholson's sequel to Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger. The undaunted American widow returned to Ireland in the midst of the Great Famine and helped organise relief for the destitute and hungry. Her account is not a history of the famine, but personal eyewitness testimony to the suffering it caused. For that reason, it conveys the reality of the calamity in a much more telling way. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.